


Dancing with Zeno

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Tumblr Methadone [7]
Category: Castle
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Romance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She's not drunk. She’s striking out for the edges of the ballroom with a bottle of champagne dangling from one hand and her shoes swinging freely from the other. But she's not drunk.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing with Zeno

**Author's Note:**

> Tag for “Till Death Do Us Part” (4  x 11) 

 

A line is not made up of points .…

In the same way,

time is not made up of parts

considered as indivisible 'nows.'

— Aristotle's reply to Zeno's Paradox Concerning Continuity

* * *

 

 

She's not drunk. She’s striking out for the edges of the ballroom with a bottle of champagne dangling from one hand and her shoes swinging freely from the other. But she's not drunk. 

"I'm not drunk." She spins to face him. Gestures fiercely with her shoes, as if he's arguing. "I'm not even half drunk." 

"Good to know." 

He frowns at a point somewhere a few feet above her head. He's not arguing, but he's not being any fun either. She wants him to be fun. She wants to _have_ fun. 

 _Have him . . ._  

But she's not supposed to be thinking like that. Not yet.

She sags a bit. The not-quite-empty champagne bottle clacks against one of the panes of glass in the faux-French door behind her. It rings out, not quite loudly enough to compete with the thump of music from the dance floor, but he winces. 

"Beckett, you might not want . . ."

"But I do." She pops her hip and hits the push bar of the door, exactly in time with the wicked smile she flashes him. "I want." 

She spins again, slipping through the door and out into some kind of courtyard. She hears him muttering behind her.  Something about alarms. About emergency exits, but she’s not really listening. Not really. The January air delivers a slap hard enough that she's _really_ not drunk. The paving stones are achingly cold beneath her not-quite-bare feet, and it's almost enough to knock some sense into her. 

Almost, but she spies him over her shoulder. He’s crouched down. He’s wedging something under the door so it won't close behind them. So they won't be locked out here and die of exposure in their party clothes. He's being sensible. It's good that one of them is, except it's not good at all. It's exhausting. Being sensible all these months has been absolutely _exhausting,_ and drunk or not, she feels a stubborn urge to knock the sense right out of him. 

"You should . . ." He straightens up. His hands go the knot of his tie. It’s a few inches south of where it should be, and she did that. She grins at him again. Forgets that it’s January and she’s not drunk as he moves toward her carefully, rethinking his phrasing along the way. "Maybe you should put those on?" 

He's gesturing to the shoes she'd half forgotten, and she realizes that she's hopping from foot to foot. Dancing in place against the cold. 

 _Dancing_  

The word makes her heart race, because she danced with him. He danced with her, and that has a lot more to do with this giddy, tilting feeling inside her than a couple glasses of champagne. 

"I could use yours." She steps suddenly close to him. Toe to toe, as she studies their feet, then tips her head way back to grin up at him. It’s late, and there’s just a hint of stubble darkening his jaw. ”I could stand on your shoes like the flower girl with Kevin."

"I don't think . . ." A smile breaks across his face, and whether it's the hours-old memory or how near they are to one another, she's glad. Better than glad when he laughs and sneaks a shy look at her. "Don't think either of us fares well in that scenario, Beckett." 

"Maybe not," she admits, but she wants to wrap her arms around him anyway. She wants to lean her body against his and sway to a melody that has nothing to do with the band bleeding out into the crystalline night. She wants to dance with him again. Here, with no one watching but the hard, brilliant stars.

"You _have_ to be cold like that." 

His voice startles her from her reverie. From her not-yet-allowed thoughts.

"I'm not," she declares, suddenly stubborn. Unfortunately stubborn, given that her teeth choose that exact moment to start chattering. 

"Not cold." He shrugs out of his suit jacket. He drapes it around her, and the borrowed warmth of his body nearly knocks her flat. The scent of his boutonnière and the easy intimacy of the gesture stall any further protest she might have made before it even makes it to her lips. "Not drunk. Anything else you're _not_ that I should know about?" 

"Not talking to you." Her voice sounds sullen, and she wonders if it's an act. If she's really annoyed that he's fussing. Being sensible when, for once, she's not. 

"Fair enough," he says, not sullen at all. Smiling, in fact, but not the right way. 

He's ushering her somewhere. Touching one hand lightly to the small of her back and urging her from the frigid paving stones to something that crunches underfoot. It's AstroTurf or outdoor carpet or something. Unpleasant and prickling, but decidedly warmer.

"What is this?" She lets her shoes drop on to a low, cushioned something or other. She raises her hand, then lets it skim down a heavy fold of fabric. It’s cream colored, diffusing the fairy lights strung all around the courtyard to wrap them in a soft, amber glow. She tips her head back, curious about how high it rises above them. 

"Some weird winter cabana or something." He looks up, following her gaze. She feels his fingers flutter close at her back, at the ready in case she topples over. "I think the wedding across the way had hors d'oeuvres out here. A little more sheltered and these things hold on to the heat. " He reaches out and raps on a tall metal column she hadn't noticed. A kerosene patio heater. "Not that you're cold," he adds slyly. 

" _You_ must be,” she realizes with a sudden, guilty start.  

She pulls his jacket tighter around her body. A paradoxical gesture if there ever was one, because she’s greedy for the warmth, and it’s got almost nothing to do with January and the thin material of her dress. She’s greedy for the moment and not quite sorry that it means he must be freezing. 

Except he doesn’t seem to be freezing. He's shaking his head. He's laughing down at her. 

"Well-kept secret." He lowers his voice and leans toward her. "Men's formal wear holds more heat than any material known on this or any other planet. I'm good till May."  

He reaches for the lapels. He tugs and straightens. He settles the material on her shoulders and fingers the petals of the flower listing in the buttonhole. He doesn’t move away. He hovers, uncertain, and she doesn't want him to be. She doesn't want either of them to be, whether it's _not yet_ or not. 

"Do you think I'm drunk?" she blurts. 

She suddenly remembers the champagne bottle dangling from her fingers. She pushes it toward him. There’s a sad inch or two sloshing around in the bottom, warm and nearly flat. She can't even remember why she was carrying it now. Why she thought it might be a useful prop.  

"No, Kate." He takes it from her. Sets it down gently somewhere in the neighborhood of her shoes and looks at her straight on. "I don't think you're drunk."

"Are you . . ." She shivers in spite of the jacket. In spite of the still-lingering warmth of his body. "Are you _worried_ that I'm drunk?"

The question surprises them both. Her, because for once, it's close to what she really wants to know. What she really wants to _say._ Him, because . . . because . . .

"Isn't that the same thing?" He laughs a little. Tries to sell it as confusion when it's not that at all. 

"No," she says simply. She waits, and when it seems as if he won't answer, she begins again. She feels the cold night air on her cheeks and makes her mind up to it. ”Castle, are you . . ."

"Yes, I'm worried," he rushes in, unstoppable once he's started. “I’m worried, because you asked me to be your plus one and we danced and now it's a million degrees below zero and you're barefoot and we're sneaking around like teenagers and I am _not drunk._ At all." He catches her hands somewhere along the way. He holds them tight enough that she can feel his blood pulsing against her palms. "I'm not the least bit drunk, and I already know that when you go home and I go home . . ." He swallows hard, like he can hardly bear the thought. "I know I won't be able to close my eyes, because I don't want it to be tomorrow. I don't want . . . "

She raises up on her toes, then. She wraps her arms around him and leans her body against his. She kisses him. The jacket slips from her shoulders, but she doesn't miss the warmth. There’s no pause before his hands glide over her hips and up along her spine. No interval at all before he’s kissing her back, long and hard and not at all sensibly. 

"It's tomorrow," she whispers against his cheek. "It's tomorrow already, Castle."

**Author's Note:**

> 1500 words. The fruits of insomnia . . .


End file.
